Collective intelligence: how are work progress and the formation of interpersonal relationships related?
Working as a team can be somewhat difficult and there may be times when you feel that you’d be better off doing it yourself, such as when there are differences of opinion, or when interpersonal relationships aren’t going well, or when team members have different values.
These stresses are particularly intense straight after the team is formed and they may cause confusion regarding operations, but strangely, after performing a few tasks and working together for a few years, an organized, functional team comes together.
Some time ago, when a multidisciplinary team was being created upon the launch of a recovery ward in a hospital, a veteran nurse said “It’ll take three years for the team to get familiar with each other, you know.” Why do teams take time to fully exhibit their functions?
The paper I discuss today argues about the relationship between the process of problem solving in a team and the formation of interpersonal relationships within the team.
The paper shows that as a team solves some sort of task, they work through four broad steps,
namely:
- the process of generating plans and ideas;
- the process of choosing suitable ones;
- resolving contradictions between the options; and
- executing the options perfected through the processes above.
Since teams are creatures comprising real live humans, there are various interactions in the interpersonal relationships at each step.
Specifically:
- creation of team goals and values;
- political agreement on team values and goals;
- forming team norms and culture; and
- forming and maintaining team cohesion
develop while performing each step.
The diagram below summarizes these steps. It shows that while performing certain tasks, interpersonal relationships mature at the same time, and over several tasks, the culture and interpersonal relationships in the team stabilize.
Looking at it from the other side, interpersonal relationships in the team will not develop or change without a task to solve, and I wonder if a certain level of pressure from tasks is necessary for a team to mature.
Reference URL: Groups: Interaction and performance
